Chapter Synopsis of The Death of Ivan Ilyich - Study Guide by Leo Tolstoy

By this point Ivan has lost all appreciation of the passing of time, and finds that in any case it has no relevance to him anymore. We see Ivan washing and being disgusted by the wasted and emaciated state of his face and body. He is then visited by one of the celebrated physicians who is treating him, who displays just the same capacity for deception and falsity that Ivan has remarked in all the others, and he feels the same hatred for him as he does for his deceitful wife, whom he feels only ever really does anything for her own benefit and not for his. That evening after dinner his wife, daughter and future son-in-law come in to see him before going out to the theatre to see a performance with Sarah Bernhardt, a famous and fashionable actress of the time. Ivan notices the nature of their conversation discussing the theatre, which is so like any other of its type and so senseless. When they leave it seems for a second that the falsity has gone with them and Ivan’s pain lessens momentarily, but soon to return.

Chapter 9

That same night after his wife returns from the theatre, Ivan, in a "state of stupefied misery" induced by the opium that he has taken for his pain, feels that he is being thrust into a black sack but that he cannot be pushed all the way in. Eventually he breaks through, wakes up, and having sent Gerasim away starts to bemoan his fate, the cruelty of life and the absence of God, asking why he is thus afflicted. He then realises that the pleasant life to which he had previously imagined he would wish to return has in fact become increasingly false, empty and devoid of joy the further he has distanced himself from childhood. However, no matter how much he tries he cannot imagine what in his proper and correct life he could have possibly done wrong to deserve such agony.

Chapter 10

Two weeks later Ivan can no longer find comfort lying in bed and instead spends his time lying facing the back of the sofa. He has realised that certainly death is approaching and for no reason. By now his hopes of recovery have almost entirely faded and impending death has become increasingly real. He finds himself utterly lonely and spends most of his time in trying to recapture and live in memories of his childhood before the falseness of his life began, and he realises finally the incomprehensible and unreasoning nature of death.

Chapter 11

Two more weeks similar to the preceding two go by. Petrischev formally proposes to Lisa. Ivan has started to worry that perhaps his whole life has in fact been lived wrongly and this thought constantly torments him, as does his hatred of those around him, who he sees living out their own false lives. Praskovya Fedorovna persuades Ivan to take communion and for a short while afterwards he feels hope and an intense desire to live. But he sees in his wife the falsehood of his own life, which flings him back into despair and he screams at her to leave the room.

Chapter 12

From the moment that Ivan shouts at his wife at the end of chapter 11 he begins to scream, and does so incessantly until two hours before his death three days later. For these three days he feels himself struggling into that black sack already mentioned in chapter 9, but feels that it his own justification of his falsely lived life that prevents him from getting right into it. However, finally he realises that in fact his life was not lived right and he feels that he falls entirely into the sack and sees light at the bottom. At this point, asking himself "what is the right thing", he grows quiet and his schoolboy son, Vasya comes up to him and kisses his hand. He feels this and suddenly feels that ineffable love that takes away death, and he forgives and feels sorry for all those people that he had formerly hated. "And there was no fear because there was no death. In place of death there was light". And although for those who witness his death his agony seems to continue for two more hours, for Ivan this moment of blissful realisation is constant and stays with him unchanged to the end.